Exposure: Caste marks

Photographs showed new recruits for Madhya Pradesh police segregated by caste, with their particular classifications scratched onto their chests with marker pens.

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India Today

May 3, 2018

ISSUE DATE: May 14, 2018

UPDATED: May 4, 2018 17:23 IST

Madhya Pradesh police recruit with caste scratched onto his chest

Last week, police in Dhar, Madhya Pradesh, found themselves in the eye of a storm, after photographs were published showing new recruits segregated by caste, their particular classifications scratched onto their chests with marker pens. Condemnation was instant, with the local superintendent of police describing the pictures as deplorable. The state's director general of police, while admitting that the labelling was wrong, explained that there was no malice behind it, just a misbegotten exercise in convenience given the numbers of new recruits and the different indicators-height and chest measurements, for instance-applied to different castes. It's astonishing, though, that the police could not find a less blatant way to list the castes of recruits, could not avoid branding them like sheep. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) described the incident as a criminal act. And while it's difficult not to take the police at their word about intent, one hopes a serious investigation will at least lead to apologies and expressions of shame.

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